Elizabeth Power - A Clash with Cannavaro

‘I can assure you that nothing is further from my mind so, rest assured, you’re perfectly safe.’ She flashed him a falsely bright smile, yet knew from the almost indiscernible lifting of an eyebrow that he had picked up on the breathless note in her voice.

‘I don’t know whether to be gratified or disappointed to hear it.’ His smile was cool and mockingly sensual. ‘The question is, Signorina Westwood...are you?’

His meaning was so subtly explicit that Lauren was shocked to feel a deep answering throb in her lower body.

‘I don’t know what you’re...’ Talking about, she started to say, but her sentence was cut in midstream as Vikki Westwood, all gleaming teeth and voluminous blonde hair, suddenly exploded onto the scene.

‘Oh, great! I see you two have already met. Are you going to let on, Emiliano, as to what you think of my sister? Isn’t she gorgeous?’

‘She is.’ Vikki’s words seemed to give those dark eyes licence to tug with leisurely insolence over Lauren’s shamefully aroused body. ‘But I’m afraid we haven’t yet been properly introduced.’

‘Emiliano, this is Lauren, my older and very available sister. Lauren, this is Emiliano Cannavaro. The Emiliano Cannavaro,’ she emphasised with relish. ‘Angelo’s older brother and the head of the Cannavaro dynasty—not to mention the company—since their father died last year.’

Lauren recalled her dismay at finding out that the man she’d been as good as insulting was the one man her sister had previously warned her to be nice to. She was already cringing from the way the younger girl had pointed out her unattached status to him, without being made aware of exactly at whom she had been directing her uncharacteristically barbed remarks.

‘He flew in from Rome to join us tonight and for the wedding tomorrow, even though he’s so busy and it was such short notice and he only touched down less than two hours ago. Wasn’t that good of him?’ Vikki added unnecessarily, although her rushed and effervescent sentence went some way to explaining why Lauren hadn’t noticed him earlier in the evening. ‘But don’t be fooled by all that Italian charisma and irresistible charm because, from what I hear, he doesn’t suffer fools easily. He might look like the perfect gentleman and like a gift from the gods to all womankind but, from what Angelo tells me, he’ll break you if he can. Snap you in half.’ She clicked her tongue and made a meaningful gesture with her hands. ‘Like a twig. So mind how you tread, lovely sister.’ Lauren detected a thread of nervous anxiety in her sister’s warning and in her shrill little laugh. ‘Oh, well. Better circulate. See ya!’ And with that she spun away in a cloud of expensive perfume.

Mortified, Lauren watched her sibling grab another female guest’s arm, saw several air kisses being exchanged.

‘I hope you don’t think that my sister’s outspoken remarks have any bearing on my character,’ Lauren remarked, still recoiling from the way Vikki had referred to her as ‘available’.

‘Meaning?’ Emiliano sent her a slanted look.

‘Why didn’t you tell me who you were?’

‘You didn’t ask,’ he rebuked her softly, unfazed by the censuring note in her voice. ‘Why? Would it have made any difference to our conversation if you had?’

She considered his question for a moment. Yes, it would, she thought. I would have run like the wind before it took the turn that it did!

‘I thought not,’ Emiliano expressed with that mocking twist to his lips, misunderstanding her hesitation in answering.

‘Is it true what she said?’ She looked up into eyes that were much too dark to be anything but sinful. ‘That you break people?’ She recalled wondering why his own brother would say a thing like that.

Something pulled at the corners of his arresting mouth. ‘Is that what you would like to believe?’

He was much too worldly—way out of her league—and Lauren prayed he hadn’t noticed the way her throat worked nervously before she replied, ‘No, but I think you could.’

She didn’t know why she had said that, but all he did was throw back his proud dark head and laugh.

‘I am afraid that your sister, as you are probably well aware, is rather a drama queen. Isn’t that what you English call it?’ And when she nodded, he told her, ‘I do what is necessary. But I am always fair.’

Strangely, she believed him. From what Vikki had already told her about him, he could run rings around his brother for playing hard and fast. As brothers, they weren’t that close, but Vikki had sounded overawed when she’d spoken of the respect Emiliano’s leadership had generated among his colleagues as well as his employees, and Lauren had only been able to guess from the success of the company that it had the right man at its helm. After all, Cannavaro Cruise & Freight Lines were up there with the kings of the seas.

Changing course, she asked, ‘Why aren’t you best man?’ She’d already chatted earlier to the person who was taking on that role and he’d been an old college friend of the groom’s.

Emiliano’s mouth tugged down at one side. ‘It’s a long story. Why aren’t you maid of honour?’

‘It’s an even longer one.’

Something almost feral flickered in those sinful eyes. ‘I’ve got all night.’

She should have listened to the warnings leaping through her, Lauren thought bitterly in hindsight, because all her instincts of self-preservation had been urging her to shake off the sensual spell that Emiliano had woven around her ever since he had come over to speak to her, but she hadn’t seemed able to move, nor had she wanted to. But neither had she felt inclined to tell him about the past strained relationship with her sister, or what had brought it about, and so she’d evaded the issue altogether by saying, ‘I didn’t come here tonight to bare my soul to a perfect stranger.’

Perfect being the operative word, her brain had whispered provocatively.

‘My brother is marrying your sister,’ he reminded her. As if he needed to! ‘That surely relates us in some obscure way.’

She caught sight of herself in a mirrored pillar and noticed how her hair seemed to blaze like luminous fire. Or like the ultimate scarlet woman’s, she thought with a kind of feverish excitement as she glanced quickly away.

‘Even relations have secrets from each other,’ she parried with a smile, trying to avoid thinking too much about the estrangement between her and Vikki. But, in doing so, her words came out with unintended provocation and she saw the heavy masculine eyelids droop as his gaze sliced over her body.

‘In that case, we will not dwell on it a moment longer. So what would you like to tell me?’

‘That you speak very good English.’

He looked amused again. ‘So do you.’

‘I should think so!’ she told him, amazed. ‘I’m English!’

Laughter lit his spectacular eyes as he said, ‘Believe me, mia cara, the two do not necessarily go hand in hand.’

Lauren laughed with him, feeling more relaxed than she had since she had first arrived in the hotel late that afternoon with her weekend case containing her gown and her outfit for Vikki’s big day.

‘Tell me, beautiful Lauren...’ The way he addressed her sent peculiar little shivers along her spine. ‘Is it because your sister warned you what a tyrant I can be—and therefore to treat me amiably—that I now feel the ice melting around my feet?’

‘No. I never listen to or act upon anyone else’s opinion of someone without first weighing up their character for myself,’ she told him candidly. ‘And if you’re mistaking truthfulness for frigidity then you’re in danger, Emiliano Cannavaro—’ she experienced a surprising thrill in saying his name ‘—of finding yourself in very deep water.’